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imabi Member

From: America Registered: 2011-10-16 Posts: 604 Website

I really need advice. My site is as most of you know www.imabi.net. After next week is over, I will be largely free to work heavily on it as my winter break starts. Here are some of the projects I have going on now.

1. Links project: Due to a relatively recent change up in the curriculum, 20% of the links of the site are still potentially faulty.
2. Exercises project: Adding exercises ranging from particle fill-in-the-blanks, translation, concept questions, etc.
3. New lessons on Classical Japanese: This is in large part my compilation of research.
4. Adding dialogues: For lessons that are more vocab based, I want to integrate the teaching of these words with review for previous lessons.
5. Making the site more concise and less verbose.
6. Kanji curriculum: I'm trying to install a true Kanji curriculum, which will take a lot of effort. Lessons 4-79 have 15 characters assigned each. 20 are for lessons 80-130, and for 130~ it'll be 25. By the time the site reaches 300 lessons, it will have covered enough Kanji for someone to pass the Kanken 1. Over time, many things will conform to the lists provided up to that point in the lessons. Word banks that conclude the lessons will utilize only those characters. Example sentences will also begin to reflect these lists, and reading aids will be removed more frequently from words whose Kanji have been introduced for some time.

Worksheets will also be made for it as well as vocab lists with examples to suggest what words need to be focused on the most with the set of characters.

Some projects are much larger than others. I average around 1-3 hours of time for these things on weekdays, 3-6 on weekends. I expect at least 30min-1.5 hours more as each of my classes come to a close. By December 12, I will probably have about 5-7 hours a day. After December 17th, this will skyrocket to probably 15 hours a day as I'll just study more Japanese over the break. For the holidays, I also want time spent reading more Japanese. I average about 100 pages a week, but I really want to get to 100 a day. I also have to set aside time for tutorials, which are hard to pinpoint.

With all of this in mind, there are several things in question.

1. What other things should be given attention that I've missed?
2. During times when I don't have much free time, what kinds of things would bring the best results?
3. Which projects should be given the most time and energy?

I don't want to just make the decisions myself because I want to hear a wide variety of opinions. I learned the hard way here over a year ago about the major shortcomings of my site, but it has all been for the better.

これからもお互い頑張りましょう。　：）

Quufer Member

Registered: 2012-02-07 Posts: 25

I'm probably an intermediate student, but after 2 years I still feel beginner, because while I did RTK and am over halfway through Core6k... I still don't have much grammar, and therefore I can't actually say much. I've gone through half of what's currently in Textfugu, and it's pretty good, though looking at the titles of your site's chapters, your site seems to have a lot more content that I might look at after finishing Textfugu. I've tried going through Tae Kim, and it just seems too confusing for me. Anyways, my preferences would be:

1. Fixing links is always good. Medium priority.
2. I tend to gloss over or skip exercises to an extent. More than I should. Medium-to-low priority.
3. I have a friend in Kyoto who is trying to learn some Classical Japanese. My (native) wife says that the friend's Standard Japanese could use some work. Low priority or eliminate.
4. Dialogues wouldn't seem to be very helpful to me. I'd rather learn some more grammar, and try to read some native material using it. I suppose that 2-3 paragraphs of text would be decent, as opposed to dialogues, which always seem forced. Might be better, though, to help your users find appropriate native material online. Low priority.
5. You seem to have a lot of material already. Cleaning up and improving what you have might be a better use of time than expanding. High priority.
6. Kanji lessons aren't really applicable to someone who has been through RTK and Core6k. That, and from your listing, it sounds like by lesson 300 that you'd have approximately 6500 kanji introduced (76*15 + 51*20 + 171*25). That sounds like extreme overkill - you'd need to have vocabulary to go along with all those kanji, and with that many, you'd need 20000 or more words, which is (from what I've heard) definitely enough for fluency. You might want to cut back a bit on kanji, unless I'm misinterpreting something. Low priority.

imabi Member

From: America Registered: 2011-10-16 Posts: 604 Website

For the most part, I think your ideas sound right on except in regards to Classical Japanese and Kanji. Classical Japanese has its own section of the site, and it is for the most part completely separate from the rest of the site. 1-130 is the majority of the site. So, like you suggest, trimming down the words but saying the same things is going to be essential to keep the curriculum developing.

There aren't going to ever be lessons specifically for studying Kanji. There will be some about certain aspects of Kanji though. Studying comes from the extensive examples given throughout the site and the worksheets to come. Once you leave 130, you already pass the necessary stuff. The majority of the material for it will be separated from the main pages anyways.

I have several examples that are quite lengthy that are much more important than dialogues. I don't really like them that much myself, but for lessons that need to exist but need substance I think it would be a good investment. I was thinking about having assessment sections by using passages from material in print and online, especially in the worksheets to come. Would that be a much better means?

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Quufer Member

Registered: 2012-02-07 Posts: 25

Understood on the Classical Japanese.

I don't really understand what you mean about kanji, but I think I've said enough about it.

The text examples you mention would probably be helpful, yes. You'd probably want to limit them to a couple of paragraphs, or a page at most, but I think that short sections like this of actual text would be very helpful. Reading comprehension and other assessment questions would also be of use, so it sounds like we're in agreement on this.

imabi Member

From: America Registered: 2011-10-16 Posts: 604 Website

So, as far as Kanji is concerned, most of its curriculum will be in a separate part of the site. What is in the actual lessons are the Kanji allocated to those lessons. In the lessons, things like the word banks and examples will feature these Kanji more so over time. So, only more examples and info will result.

I was thinking of actually just one or two decent size paragraphs every other section. So, say a lesson has about 10 sections, you might expect 3 reading practices. If it's a small lesson, which there are some, there will fewer, but they would be longer. I really think it would help with review. It makes me excited thinking about making them.

Thanks for your help.

imabi Member

From: America Registered: 2011-10-16 Posts: 604 Website

I'm thinking about making my lesson line up before the following.

Beginners: 1-50
Intermediate: 51-100
Advance: 101-150
Classical: 151-230 (Note that these latter sections are largely under planning and will not likely be finished until 2014)
Dialects: 231-285
Miscellaneous: 286-325

The question is what gets moved around in the current 1-80? I was thinking of splitting lessons that have more than one topic. You can compare the table of contents on the site with the proposed. Some lessons will be far smaller, which I think will make lesson sizes more manageable for people and easier for me to find new ways to organize things. This will take a while to implement, and I can't start on it until after my exams are through, but I really think that this could greatly improve the site. What do you guys think?

Beginners
第1課: Pronunciation
第2課: ひらがな & カタカナ
第3課: 漢字
第4課: The 10 Major Aspects
第5課: Nouns & Pluralization
第6課: Numbers
第7課: Counters
第8課: The 6 Bases & the Copula
第9課: The Particle が & は
第10課: Adjectives
第11課: The Particle を
第12課: Regular Verbs
第13課: The Particle か
第14課: The Particle も
第15課: The Irregular Verbs する & 来る
第16課: Expressions of Daily Life
第17課: The Particles て
第18課: The Particle の
第19課: The Particle に
第20課: The Particle へ
第21課: The Particle で
第22課: ある & いる
第23課: てある & ている
第24課: Nationalities, Languages, Fields of Study, & the Planets
第25課: The Particle と
第26課: Interrogatives
第27課: The Particle から
第28課: The Particle まで
第29課: Adverbs
第30課: Onomatopoeic Words
第31課: Food
第32課: The Date & Telling Time
第33課: Absolute Time
第34課: Relative Time
第35課: The Particle でも
第36課: The Particle や
第37課: こそあど
第38課: Plants & Animals
第39課: The Particle たり
第40課: Giving Verbs
第41課: Giving Verbs with て
第42課: Family
第43課: The Particle だけ
第44課: The Particles しか & ほか
第45課: Transitive & Intransitive Verbs
第46課: Endings I: -始める, -終わる・える, &-続ける
第47課: Endings II: -やむ, -出す, & -上がる・げる
第48課: The Body
第49課: The Particles し & しも
第50課: Potential
Intermediate
第51課: Past & Negative Tense Speech Modals
第52課: Conditionals: The Particles と, なら（ば）, たら, & ば
第53課: Must and Must Not
第54課: Directions
第55課: The Particles ながら
第56課: The Particle けれど
第57課: 語尾
第58課: 語尾 II
第59課: Want and Feeling:-たい, ほしい, & -がる
第60課: -Te form Speech Modals I: -ていい, -ておく, -てしまう, & -てたまる
第61課: -Te form Speech Modals II: -ていく, -てくる, -てみる・みたい, & -てみせる
第62課: Nominalization
第63課: Expressions with こと
第64課: Conjunctions
第65課: ため, とおり, かもしれない, & 通じて
第66課: Endings III: -慣れる, -損なう, -そびれる, -損じる, -逃す,
第67課: Endings IV: -忘れる, -合う, -合わせる, 間違える, -誤る, & -残す
第68課: Endings IV: -すぎる, -切る, -易い, -難い, & -辛い
第69課: Endings V: -果てる -付ける・く, -立てる・つ, -尽くす,& -こなす
第70課: Endings VI: -込む, -返る・す, -抜く, -捲る, -通す,
第71課: Idioms I: 気
第72課: The Particles とか, など, & なんて
第73課: The Particle より
第74課: The Superlative
第７5課: Similarity: -ようだ, -みたいだ, -そうだ, -らしい, & っぽい
第76課: Obligation: つもり, はず, & -べし
第77課: 連体詞
第78課: The Passive
第79課: The Causative
第80課: The Volitional
第81課: Volitional II
第82課: The Imperative
第83課: The Particles ほど & くらい
第84課: The Particles のみ, ので, & のに
第85課: The Particles って, たって, & だって
第86課: The Particles こそ, ずつ, どころ
第87課: Honorifics I: Titles
第88課: Honorifics II: Nouns
第89課: Honorifics III: Adjectives & the Copula
第90課: Honorifics III: Regular Verbs
第91課: Honorifics IV: Irregular Verbs
第92課: Honorifics V: Irregular Verbs II
第93課: The Seasons
第94課: Measurements
第95課: Combination Particles with と I
第96課: Combination Particles with と II
第97課: Combination Particles with ところ
第98課: Circumstance: まま, 訳, 思いきや, & もと
第99課: Tendency: 嫌いがある, が早いか, が最後, & そばから
第100課: End Result: おろか, もちろん, もとより, ともあれ, & 挙句

uisukii Guest

"Beginners
第1課: Pronunciation
第2課: ひらがな & カタカナ"

Geeze, I consider myself a complete beginner yet I didn't even consider anymore the challenge of learning pronunciation and the kana. Feels like I almost take it for granted- I would hate to have to learn ひらがな and カタカナ all over again. It took months for most of my pronunciation to sound as they should; on and off for over a year for my tongue to generate the right sound for ら、り、る、れ、ろ. To think it comes without thought now.

Sorry, no real help at all to offer. It just sort of took me back a while. It's really hard to gauge your own level of ability, lol

chamcham Member

Registered: 2005-11-11 Posts: 1444

Everytime I read your website address (www.imabi.net), I think of the Black-eyed Peas song "Imma be".... :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAj-dBNCi4

imabi Member

From: America Registered: 2011-10-16 Posts: 604 Website

Whatever you think, but the name is off limits for change. People can just get used to it.

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